1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming method and an image forming device, which form images by transferring toner images developed by a development device to a transfer material such as a recording paper and fixing the toner images on the transfer material.
2. Related Art
There have been proposed a large number of wet type image forming devices which develop latent images by using a liquid developer with a high viscosity in which toners of a solid component are dispersed in a liquid solvent, and allow electrostatic latent images to be visualized. Developers usable in the wet type image forming devices are formed by suspending solid contents (toner particles) in an organic solvent (carrier liquid) with a high viscosity which is constituted by a silicon oil, a mineral oil, an edible oil, or the like and has an electrical insulation property, and the toner particle has a particle diameter of about 1 μm and is extremely fine. The wet type image forming devices which employ the fine toner particles enable a higher image quality than dry type image forming devices which employ powder toner particles with a particle diameter of about 7 μm.
As disclosed in, for example, JP-T-2000-508280, in an image forming device employing such a liquid developer, an electrostatic latent image is formed on a drum having a photoconduction surface by using an image device such as a laser scanner or the like, the electrostatic latent image is developed by a liquid toner containing charged toner particles and a carrier liquid, and a developed image is printed onto a base material.
In the image forming device, the base material is passed through a transfer portion constituted by a middle transfer member and a pressing roller, and the developed image is formed by transferring an image on the middle transfer member to the base material. Particularly, a gripper is mounted on the pressing roller to grip a front end portion of the base material forwarded to the pressing roller, and after the image on the middle transfer member is transferred thereto, the base material is released. This determines a position of the image transferred to the base material.
As described above, in the image forming device disclosed in JP-T-2000-508280, the position of the base material is determined by the gripper mounted on the pressing roller, but, as can be seen from FIG. 1, FIG. 2A, and the like in JP-T-2000-508280, the gripper is provided on a surface layer of the pressing roller, and is considered only to use a simple and small-sized mechanism to an extent of not blocking the rotation of the middle transfer member and the pressing roller.
In addition, in the image forming device disclosed in JP-T-2000-508280, when the image forming device is stopped by a paper jam or the like, if the transfer to the base material is not performed, the liquid toners remaining on the surface of the middle transfer member need cleaning. However, in this image forming device, since the middle transfer member and the pressing roller always contact with each other, the surface of the pressing roller is contaminated by the liquid toners remaining on the surface of the middle transfer member. The contamination on the surface of the pressing roller makes a base material subsequently transported to the pressing roller dirty, and this has influence on the image quality.